Innehåller bibliografiska referenser och index

1. Constructing the theatre actress ; 2. Argumentative women in domestic spaces. The plays of Rasheed Jahan and Ismat Chughtai ; 3. Independence, partition, and new theatrical imaginings ; 4. From social reform to social protest. Gender and caste politics in Kusum Kumar's 'Listen Shefali' (Suno Shefali) ; 5. The courtesan as 'Virangana' in contemporary historical drama. Tripurari Sharma's San Sattavan ka Qissa: Azizun Nisa -- Epilogue: 'A window into an elegant and colourful, but almost forgotten world'

'Performing Women' brings visibility to the work of women who performed on the borderlines of dominant theatrical activity and engaged in dramatic enactments that contested middle-class codes of female propriety, which became normalised in the national popular consciousness